The overall objectives of this project are (1) to study Choline Acetyltransferase (ChAc) at the neuromuscular junction in normal and developing muscle subjected to physiologic stress, in animal models of neuromuscular disease, in developing lung, and in selected samples of muscle taken from patients with diseases of nerve and muscle; (2) to utilize disrupted preparations of muscle to study endplate Acetylcholinesterase (ACh-ase) as described for ChAc above; (3) to study choline transport in synaptosomes and acetylcholine accumulation in synaptic vesicles; and (4) to define optimal conditions for oxidative metabolism in nerve endings in order to study the utilization of membrane bound choline as a substrate for acetylcholine synthesis an accumulation in synaptic vesicles.